Incident of alleged brutality at school results in investigation

Nancy Flake

Published 6:00 pm, Sunday, November 11, 2001

Karen Preston of The Woodlands and Louanne Thomas, an adult witness to part of the Oct. 31 incident, have both filed complaints against CISD Police Officer George Harper, who was assigned to part-time evening duty at Oak Ridge High School.

The girl, Shamira Preston, is facing disciplinary action for assaulting a public servant and for failure to identify herself when asked.

Shamira Preston, an Oak Ridge High School sophomore and member of the school's girls basketball team and Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, is claiming she was thrown against a wall, pushed to the floor and had her head slammed on the floor while she was being handcuffed during the after-hours incident at the school.

Preston had been at basketball practice that afternoon following classes, and when that was over, she went to ROTC drill team practice with two other ROTC members, according to Karen Preston.

When the three girls were finished practicing in an area outside the school, Shamira Preston went to the building to go inside and retrieve her belongings from the locker room. However, the doors were locked, so she walked into the band hall entrance and went under an interior security gate that had been left partially up.

According to Shamira Preston's written statement made to district officials, she went outside to the front of the school and waited for her mother to pick her up. One of Preston's friends walked up and said she also needed to get her belongings, but the front doors were locked.

Seeing George Harper inside the front doors, the two girls knocked on the door to get his attention and asked if they could go inside.

"He said no, the school is closed and we need to get away from the school," Preston's written statement to district officials stated.

Students may not re-enter school buildings without permission of an administrator or staff member, according to CISD Police Chief Bill Harness, and because there were no extracurricular activities going on in the main building, there was no adult supervision.

"For safety precautions, students and visitors are not allowed in the main building after the end of classes," Harness said. "Students and visitors are advised of this procedure and should be referred to the on-duty campus administrator."

The mother of Preston's friend then tried to get Harper to let them in, but he again refused. Then, as they were walking away, according to Preston's statement, Harper "stepped outside and asked if I was the girl that went under the gate and I said yes."

Harper asked Preston her name, which she refused to give him. "He asked me again, and I said no, so he said 'You need to give me your name or you're going to juvie (juvenile detention),'" Preston's statement stated.

Harper approached Preston with his handcuffs, and as she backed away while saying he didn't have any right to put his hands on her, he grabbed her shirt and twisted her arm behind her back.

Preston held her shirt so Harper wouldn't be able to grab her other arm, she wrote in the statement. "He pushed me up against the brick wall in front of the student parking lot and began to choke me. I still wouldn't give him my arm, so he dragged me into the school."

Then, Preston grabbed her friend's mother so she wouldn't be in the building by herself with Harper, her statement noted. According to the girl's statement, Harper pushed both to the floor, and when the friend's mother got back up, she asked Preston for Karen Preston's telephone number.

At that time, according to Preston, Harper picked up her head and banged it on the floor, then pushed the friend's mother out of the building.

When Preston asked Harper to read her her rights and he refused, he again banged her head against the floor and then dragged her to the door. "I blacked out for a minute," she wrote.

Harper put his legs across Preston's back, placed his right knee into her back, tightened the handcuff on her right arm and tried to push a pressure point under her chin," the girl claimed in her statement. "He reached for my arm again and said if I didn't give him my arm, he's going to break it," she wrote.

Harper then called for backup officers and asked them to bring Preston's basketball coaches and ROTC directors. As the coaches were approaching, Karen Preston arrived.

"She has bruises," she said. "All because she wouldn't give her name."

Harness and other district officials cannot comment on the case without written permission from Karen Preston, but "generally school district police officers may detain students when the officer has a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the student code of conduct or the Texas Penal Code has occurred," he said.

"An arrest could occur if a student who has been detained and does not identify himself or herself fails to comply with the officer's directives and resorts to disruptive and/or assaultive behavior."

According to Karen Preston, her daughter bit Harper on the arm when he had her arm pulled behind her back.

"She bit him for relief," she said. "It was self-defense, plain and simple."

Preston was not taken to juvenile detention after the incident because there was no room for her that evening, she wrote in her statement.

After she was released to her mother, Karen Preston took her daughter to the emergency room at Memorial Hermann-The Woodlands Hospital for examination.

A written copy of the examination report that Preston provided to The Courier states that Shamira Preston had multiple abrasions and contusions.

The signature of the doctor is illegible, and Karen Preston did not return calls to The Courier.

The CISD Police Department is also conducting an internal affairs investigation over the incident, Harness said. Once the investigation is complete, which should be next week, it will be reviewed by district personnel, the county juvenile prosecutor, the Montgomery County District Attorney's office, the Montgomery County grand jury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Karen Preston contacted the FBI, according to Harness.

Harper has been re-assigned to other duties, and no determination of any disciplinary action against him can be made until the investigation is complete.

Shamira Preston has been referred to alternative education placement, which is allowable under the Conroe school district's code of conduct when a student has engaged in inappropriate verbal and/or physical contact with a staff member, Harness said.

However, Harness could not comment on whether the girl has actually been placed in AEP, and as of Thursday, according to Karen Preston, her daughter was still at Oak Ridge High School.